Hydraulic fracking is creating huge energy growth around the world. Similar to the refinery and petrochemical industry, the fracking industry has concerns about combustible and toxic gases released during the production and processing of natural gas and oil from hydraulic fracking wells.
Since the hydraulic fracking is a relatively new production process, there are few rules or regulations governing the monitoring and control of the hazardous gases in the area surrounding the oil and gas production facility.
Recent reports from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) present a significant effort to reduce emissions from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells. The Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) for valves are applied at 500 ppm for hydraulically fractured wells compared to 2000 ppm for refining and petrochemical processes. A key component of the rules is expected to yield a nearly 95 percent reduction in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from more than 11,000 new hydraulically fractured gas wells each year. This significant reduction would be accomplished primarily through the use of a proven process known as a “reduced emissions completion” or “green completion” to capture natural gas that currently escapes to the air.
In a green completion process, special equipment separates gas and liquid hydrocarbons from the flow back that comes from the well as it is being prepared for production. The gas and hydrocarbons can then be treated and used or sold, avoiding the waste of nonrenewable natural resources.
An estimated 11,400 new wells are fractured each year. The EPA estimates another 1,400 existing wells are re-fractured to stimulate production or to produce natural gas from a different production zone. In 2009, about 1.1 million wells were producing oil and natural gas in the United States.
Known measurement and detection techniques are directed to passive sampling of the environment around hydraulic fracking sites then calculating VOC and hazardous gas levels. These techniques are time consuming and labor intensive and are often unable to catch harmful VOC's in real-time to protect worker in hydraulic fracking sites.
In fracking sites, the gas composition is a combination of hydrocarbons. A new method and apparatus, as described herein, has been developed to accurately measure the explosive and hazardous gases in hydraulic fracking sites to ensure plant safety, personnel safety, and improved productivity.